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AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED IN THE 



Central Presbyterian Church, 



omoj^oo. 



JULY 4th, 1865, 



BY THE PASTOR, 



REY. FREDERICK T. BROWN, D. D. 



CHICAGO : 

Jameson & Mobse, Printers, 12 and U La Salle Street. 

1865. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVKKED IN THE 



Central Presbyterian Cliurch, 



GHZICA-G-O, 



JULY 4:th, 18(>5, 



BY THE PASTOR, 



REV. FREDERICK T. BROWJN, D. D. 



CHICAGO: 

Jameson & Morse, Printers, 12 and 14 La Salle Street. 

1865. 



The pastor of the (Central Presbyterian Church, believing it to 
be the duty of the Church to observe this 4th of July, appointed 
a service for the day. And that it might not conflict with the gene- 
ral observance of the Day by the Citizens of Chicago, (including 
his congregation,) appointed the hour of 9 A. M. 

The address then delivered is now published by request of Mr. 
A. H. HoGE, Judge E. S. Williams, Judge Lincoln Clark, 
Jno. Lyle King, Esq., Hev. John Woodbridge, B. D., John 
WooDBRiDGE, Jr., Esq.. Messrs. T. M. Jones, R. M. Welch, 
Walter ]]utler, W. P. Dickinson, A. B. Blaikie, W. W. 
Chandler, Ada3I Holliday, Capt. Chas. McClure, and others. 



ADDRESS. 



This is a great day to the American people — the 
greatest in the history of this nation ; not as the Fourth 
of July simply, but as this particular Fourth of July. 
This Fourth of July, (as some one has happily said,) 
corresponds to the first Fourth of July as the spiritual 
birth of a man corresponds to his natural birth — the 
one a birth to a spiritual, holy, eternal life, the other 
a birth to a natural, corrupt, temporal life. This 
Fourth of July symbolizes not only the life of the 
nation, but also its regenerated, enduring life. It has 
also been compared with three others of its predeces- 
sors ; the Fourth following the conclusion of the Revo- 
lutionary War, the Fourth following the adoption of 
the Federal Constitution, and the Fourth following the 
peace after the last war with England. But a very 
short comparison will show that it stands apart from, 
and is superior to each of these. The Fourth follow- 
ing the Revolutionary War commemorated, indeed, our 
national independence, but the nation was small, weak, 
deeply in debt, and composed of discordant, separate 
state sovereignties, and its future was dark, uncertain 
and discouraging. The Fourth following the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution commemorated the consoli- 
dated sovereignty of the nation, but the adoption was 
by a bare and reluctant majority of the popular vote. 



and was secured by compromises that wholly satisfied 
neither Federalists nor Democrats. The Fourth fol- 
lowing the last war with England commemorated our 
prowess on the land, and our victories on the sea, but 
we had not secured the denial of the " right of search " 
(for which the war was begun), nor any other material 
advantage, and we were again discordant and bur- 
dened by an enormous debt. We have but to look at 
those three days, days of rejoicing and thanksgiving, 
we admit, and then at this day, to see how much 
greater this is — how much fuller of joy, and life, and 
promise. This day commemorates many things, more 
than I can speak of; the close of war, the return of 
peace, the consummation of the Union, and things that 
have been secured b}^ the war and will bear fruit in 
the peace ; and we should call them to mind to-day 
for the double purpose of giving God thanks, and 
learning from them what He would they should teach. 

True, there are some citizens of the Republic, the 
overthrown and dethroned conspirators against its life, 
and their deluded and vanquished followers, who will 
npt rejoice to-day ; but their sorrow and humiliation is 
the measure of our joy and glory; and the day will 
come when, if not they, their children and children's 
children, will join with our's in giving thanks to Al- 
mighty God for the victories and defeats this day 
commemorates. 

And there are others, loyal men and women, who have 
been made to drink so deeply of the cup of sorrow by 
the calamities of the war, that they will not find it easy 



to rejoice to-day. Selfish sorrow will put in a strong 
plea for itself, and say, " I do well to sorrow ; what is 
the nation's gain to my loss?" And even unselfish 
sorrow cannot so deny nature as not to feel that the joy 
of this day has been bought at a fearful price — at a 
price that impoverishes all the rest of this mortal life. 
Mrs. Browning's womanly tearful song of the patriot 
Italian mother, both whose boys had been shot 
fighting for the independence of United Italy, and who 
could not sing her song of victory in chorus with the 
rejoicing nation, (though have it otherwise she would 
not if she could), expresses the feelings of thousands 
of unselfish loyal American hearts to-day. The fathers 
and mothers whose idolized sons have been sacrified to 
maintain, strengthen, and purify this heritage of God — 
the wives who gave their beloved husbands to see 
them return no more ; the brothers and sisters whose 
brothers sleep the sleep of the slain ; the maimed and 
wounded, the diseased and disabled — these cannot 
rejoice with unalloyed rejoicing. And in the cups of 
all who are worthy to be citizens of the Republic, 
there is to-day one big drop of bitterest bitterness for the 
foul murder of the most magnanimous, large, and warm 
hearted man of his age, whom we had learned to love 
as we love a personal friend, whom we were proud to 
call the peer of George Washington, whose genial hu- 
manity, common sense, and obedience to the will of 
God, were our admiration, and were becoming the 
world's wonder. We miss him to-day ; we miss his 
proclamation inviting us to observe this day by national 
thanksgiving. We feel that something is wanting — 



6 

there is fin empty seat at our feast at the head of the 
table, and we hardly dare to look toward it for fear of 
the tears that will come into our eyes. And yet it is 
better so. God gave Abraham Lincoln — quaint, home- 
1}% manly, faithful, reverential, modest Abraham Lin- 
coln — the noblest work to do of this nineteenth 
century, (how many nobler have there been in all the 
nineteen centuries?) and he did it nobly — did it, hav- 
ing vowed to God in his closet, on his knees, that he 
would do it — and then was not, for God took him We 
miss him, but he is not lost to us, only consecrated, 
and his death consecrates his work. We will then 
still take our cup of thanksgiAdng, with this big drop, 
and with all our drops of bitterness in it, and call 
upon the name of the Lord. 

And is there not something sublime, something al- 
most divine, in the sight of a people who have suf- 
fered as this people have, and who still sorrow, and 
still most sorrow, spontaneously, without proclama- 
tion, as if moved by one common impulse, rising up 
to give thanks to Almighty God, and then sitting 
down at his feet and saj^ing, "Our Heavenly Father, 
teach us by this sore discipline to be wiser and better 
children than we were before. Teach us to love truth, 
mercy, and justice. Teach us to follow thee more 
closely, to obey thee more implicitly, to see thee more 
clearly, to love thee more truly. Teach us to feel and 
to reverence our common brotherhood as thy children, 
and to look not every one on his own things, but 
every one also on the things of otliers ?" To nie it 



seems so. Aud I thauk God that lie has put it into 
the hearts of the American people to make this 
Fourth of July a great Feast Day of joy, gi'atitude 
and thanksgiving : not by Presidential proclamation, 
now that our chieftain sleeps, but by the motion of 
his own Spirit. 

I might fill up this hour with one subject, Peace. 
And, doubtless, the immediate and chief gladness of 
the day to hundreds of thousands will be peace. The 
war is over. Our brave "boys" are coming home. 
The hospitals are closing. The rebel prisons are 
empty. Swords are beating into plow-shares, and 
spears into pruning hooks. The voice of the turtle is 
heard in the land, and the time for the singing of birds 
has come. O, Peace ! this peace, after a long, bloody, 
fratratcidal war, is a most blessed thing. But of 
peace I have nothing more, directly, to say. I will 
go back, and sjieak of other things. 

Less than five years ago, this nation was in a most 
sad state. Sick unto death, though she knew it not; 
leprous from the crown of the head to the sole of 
the foot, though she suspected it not. I will prove 
the truth of this statement under four heads : 

1. Slavery. When, in 1787, the Constitution 
of the United State was adopted, there was but one 
opinion in the country on the subject of slavery, viz : 
that it was iniquitous and unprofitable ; unjust to the 
slave, demoralizing to the master, inimical to free 
labor, and antagonistic to free institutions. No one 
thought of defending it, either from the Scriptures 



8 

or on the ground of political economy. The slave 
States, especially, were weary of it, and lamented it 
as a heavy curse. It was the Old Man of the Sea 
whom they had innocently, or rather, unsuspectingly, 
taken on their shoulders and now could not shake off. 
The average price of able-bodied slaves was only 
from $250 to $300. But, in 1803, Louisiana was 
purchased, when the price of slaves went up to from 
$500 to $600, and some began to say, that possibly, 
after all, the institution might become profitable : but 
still the moral sentiment of the country was against 
it. With the acquisition of Florida in 1819, the 
price of slaves ran up to $800 and $1000, and slavery 
in the Southern States began to be regarded with de- 
cided favor ; it was clearly profitable, and some 
Christian men were found who said, but timidly, it 
could be proved from the Scriptures that it was a 
divine institution. Then began in the North the 
anti-slavery agitation, that has been so misrepresented 
and abused, in opposition to the pro-slavery change 
of feelings and teachings in the South, and to bring 
back the sentiment of the country to what it was in 
the beginning — the natural, or, if you will, unnatural 
father of abolitionism was slavery. But the leaven 
of iniquity continued to work. As new cotton, su- 
gar and rice fields were opened, slaves increased in 
value and slavery became more and more profitable. 
In the older northern slave States, where slave labor 
was no longer profitable, it was profitable to breed 
slaves to sell to the more southern States. The aver- 
age annual income to Virginia from this source, for 



9 

more than a score of years preceding the rebellion, 
was from five to ten millions of dollars ; one year, it 
is reported, running up as high as twenty millions. 
And as slaves increased in value, and slavery became 
increasingly profitable, the evidence increased in 
clearness that the institution was not only beneficent 
but divine. In 1845 Texas was annexed. The price 
of slaves went up to $1,500 and $2,000, audit became 
as clear as proofs from Holy Writ that the institu- 
tion had the especial favor and protection of God, 
that to say aught against it was to be a " troubler of 
Israel," and that to be an abolitionist was to be an 
infidel. 

Thenceforward, for fifteen years, slavery ruled 
the country. It had but to ask, or rather demand, 
to receive. It had but to threaten, to be obeyed. 
Aye, it had but to signify its wish, to obtain. It 
subsidized the politics, the literature, the social cus- 
toms, and, to a great extent, the religious and theo- 
logical faith of the country. It was the one sacred 
thing that must not be doubted, under penalty of 
heresy and outlawry ; and that must not be touched, 
except to caress and bless. When, O, when! since 
the birth of the Son of man, did any other en- 
Ughtened Christian people humble themselves so ab- 
jectly before any other god so ugly and abominable ! 
But, " clear weather cometh out of the North." A 
spirit of formidable opposition to these monstrous as- 
sumptions of slavery was quietly assuming shape. 
The slg-very propagandists were aware of it, and laid 



10 

their plans to anticipate it, and frustrate it by break- 
ing in twain the nation, establishing a great slave 
empire with one-half of it, and gradually absorbing 
such portions of the other half as were of most value 
to them — the great Middle, Western, and North- 
Western States. And, though these objects were 
avowed openly and boastfully, so skillfully had they 
worked poisoning the public mind at the north, that 
at the commencement of the rebellion, and even after 
eighteen months of fighting, no effective organiza- 
tion could have been secured in the loyal States, 
having for its avowed object to strike down slavery 
in striking down the rebellion. Even so lately as 
last November, we saw how deadly was this poison 
and how subtly it lurked in the veins in the hun- 
dreds of thousands of votes cast in the loyal States 
in opposition to the anti-slavery policy of the admin- 
istration. 

2. State Sovereignty. The articles of confedera- 
tion, adopted in 1778, after trial of nearly ten years, 
were found defective, mainly from causes originating 
in the assumed independent sovereignty of the indi- 
vidual states, forbidding such a coalescence as would 
make one sovereign organic whole. The convention to 
frame a constitution for the United States, had for one 
of its prime objects to remedy this defect. Its aim 
was to frame a constitution for the United States, (now 
making one nation,) that should secure the individuality 
and independence of the separate States, and their 
union and dependence as one State — as the members 



11 

of the body are separate and independent members, 
and are united in the body and make one man. The 
eye sees for itself, the ear hears for itself, the hand 
handles for itself : in this sense, each is sovereign and 
independent. But, in a larger sense, each is dependent 
on the body from which it takes its life, and all are 
united to make one perfect whole. The constitution 
of the man governs the whole man as a unit, and gov- 
erns each and all the members, that, united, make the 
man. The aim of the convention was to frame such a 
constitution for the United States. In its judgment, it 
was as monstrous in politics to have independent State 
sovereignty in the Union, as it would be in physiology 
to have independent member sovereignty in the body. 
That a State had no more right or power to secede of 
its own mation from the union, than an eye had to 
secede of its own motion from the body. The consti- 
tution framed by the convention was of this sort, 
after mature deliberation, and a thorough discussion 
of the mooted points of State and national sover- 
eignty. It was then submitted to the States for 
adoption or rejection ; when, in each of them, these 
mooted questions were again discussed with all the 
earnestness, eloquence and learning the best minds of 
the day could bring to bear upon them. And, when 
all was said that could be said against the constitution, 
it was adopted by the States in 1787, and became by 
solemn covenant and agreement the constitution of the 
United States. Of course simultaneously with this 
adoption, the independent sovereignty of the States, 
by their own act of surrender, ceased to exist. 



12 

But, pari passu, with the change of public opinion in 
the South touching slavery, beginning with the acquisi- 
tion of Louisiana in 1803, increasing with the purchase 
of Florida in 1819, and culminating with the annexation 
of Texas in 1845, was a change touching the doctrine 
of State sovereignty : it was, in fact, part of the deep 
policy of the slavery propagandists to secure their 
ends with that institution by means of this heresy. 
Independent State sovereignty was simply the mason's 
trowel wherewith to build up the tower slaver}^; 
then to be thrown aside; but of this the people 
were not told. Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof. Why damage the reputation of your tool till 
it has done your work ? Wise master builders, after 
their kind, were those slavery architects. Accordingly, 
in and out of season, they magnified state pride above 
national pride — that it was more honorable to be a 
Georgian, a Virginian, a South Carolinian than an 
American : and, as sedulously, taught the people the 
heresy of State sovereignty — that their first allegiance 
was to their State, their second to the United States ; 
and that in a conflict of authorities, they must be 
loyal to their State, disloyal to the United States. 

It was an insidious principal of evil ; fair to look 
upon, beguiling in speech, and appealing strongly to 
the exclusiveuess and pride of the human heart ; hut 
in character disorganizing and disintegrating — sap- 
ping the power, marring the beauty, destroying the 
life of the fairest and strongest State. Fortunately 
for the people of Europe, it is one of those devils 



10 
O 

their governments long since cast out. France, as she 
is, is a power in the world. But France disintegrated 
to her twenty or thirty original Gaulish Provinces, 
each an independent sovereignty, each claiming an 
independent and superior allegiance from its citizens, 
were nothing. It is something grand to be an Eng- 
lishman. But, England disintegrated to her original 
Saxon States, it were not grand to be a Sussex, 
Essex, or Kentish man. France is a united, absolute 
sovereignty ; so is England : hence their grandeur 
and power. As a matter of merely personal pride and 
pleasure, it may be something to the citizen himself to 
have been born in Normandy, or Brittany, or Provence, 
in Essex, Sussex, or Kent; Imt to the world it is nothing. 
To the world, France comprehends all her provinces, 
and is greater than them all ; and England compre- 
hends ail her counties, and is greater than them all. 
These are obvious truths touching England and 
France ; they should be just as obvious touching 
America. It is somethins: 2:rand to be an American. 
But, America disintegrated to her individual States, 
each an independent sovereignty, each claiming an 
independent and superior allegiance from its citizens, 
it were not grand to be a Pennsylvanian or Virgin- 
ian, an Illinoisan or a South Carolinian. The Repub- 
lic of the United States is a power in the world. But 
a Republic of these disunited States were nothing. 
State pride within its legitimate bounds is V)oth a 
good and a pleasant thing. But when (as in the 
southern States, and in the interests of slaveiy, it did) 
State pride becomes State sovereignty, and State 



14 

sovereignty is magnified above National sovereignty, 
and the citizen is taught that his first and supreme 
allegiance is to his State, even to rebellion against 
the United States, then it becomes a monstrous folly, 
or a monstrous crime, or both. And this very crime 
and folly was perpetrated against the Republic, in 
defiance of the Constitution, when eleven States 
seceded from the Union, and formed the so-called 
Southern Confederacy. 

3. Sectional Alienations. What these aliena- 
tions were, you know, and you know it was both the 
policy and the practice of the leaders of public opin- 
ion in the South to foster, aye, to create them. It is 
of the nature of slavery to be exclusive, arrogant, 
domineering, supercilious. In their papers, in public 
harangues, from the rostrum, from the pulpit, by all 
manner of ways, the southern people were taught that 
they were a superior race ; that the grace, beauty, 
womanliness, bravery, chivalry, manliness of the na- 
tion were with them. And that the people of the free 
States (by blood, birth, education, association, labors) 
were common, vulgar, cowardly, mean-spirited ; that 
they could be insulted and trampled on with impu- 
nity ; that association with them was degrading and 
contaminating, etc., etc., ad nauseum. These were 
appeals to human pride that could not easily be with- 
stood by a people who, for the most part, staid at 
home, had few schools, and read but few books or 
newspapers. And, if I may judge from what has 
been reported to me, from what I saw and heard in a 



15 

somewhat extensive acquaintance in the South previ- 
ous to the rebellion, and from what has apj)earecl in 
divers forms during the rebellion, these false glorifica- 
tions of self, and these lying slanders of others, had 
ripened to a bountiful harvest. 

4. Commercial Corruption. By this I do not 
mean fraud, nor dishonesty, but the worship of the 
God Mammon. This worship was confined to no sec- 
tion, but was common to the whole country. The 
country was prosperous beyond example. Everything 
that was touched (in the field, in the shop, in the 
warehouse, in the manufactory, on the land and on 
the sea) turned to gold. The very earth was full of 
gold, or of things that could be converted to gold. 
Consequently Mammon was the popular God ; he had 
his temples, his altars, his fragrant incense, his costly 
offerings, everywhere. Nothing was too good for him, 
nothing was too costly to sacrifice to him. Of course 
this was corrupting, and in many ways little suspect- 
ed. Truth, justice, mercy, righteousness, were com 
modities bought and sold in the market places, aye, 
were openly hawked about the streets. Great was 
God Mammon, and commerce was his prophet. 

I repeat, less than five years ago this nation was 
in a most sad condition. Sick unto death, though she 
knew it not ; leprous from the crown of her head to 
the sole of her foot, though she suspected it not. Four 
fatal diseases had fastened upon her: slavery, independ- 
ent State sovereignty, sectional alienation, and com- 
mercial corruption. 



16 

But how is it to-day touching these tour thiugs 'i 
Shivery ! what is slavery to-day ? Where is shavery 
now ? AVho among us are so poor as to do it rever- 
ence ? We have broken the shackles of caste, pre- 
judice and dominion, and say of slavery in all the 
States of the Union : " Cast it out, cast it out, and 
let its burial be the burial of an ass." 

Independent State sovereignty ! where is it to-day? 
Who will ever hear of it again, now that the rebellion 
is put down ? Shallow, flimsy, sophistical, treacher- 
ous, when it had done its wicked work, the rebels 
themselves treated it with scorn. It worked well 
to disintegrate the old Republic ; but it did not work 
well to consolidate the new Confederacy ; and the 
rebel leaders would none of it. It worked well as a 
lever to lift the seceding States out of the Union into 
the Confederacy; but then it was openly disgraced; 
and the deluded men who had followed the phantom 
so far were told, "no State may touch that lever 
now, to lift itself out of the Confederacy, either to 
independence, or back again into the old Union." 
Yes, independent State sovereignty among the States 
of this Union (and with it the right of secession) is 
dead and buried ; and let all the people say. Amen ! 
Henceforth the Republic is a unit, an organic whole, 
a body with its living soul, a sovereign State with 
absolute powers; our brave boys in blue have settled 
that question beyond all further controversy. And 
henceforth the proud l)oast of the citizens of the 
United States will not be some State name, but the 



17 

one name that comprehends, and includes, and ccives . 
their chief worth to all the States — American. 

Sectional Alienation. Jefferson Davis, beinp^then 
in power at Richmond, said : " This war has dng a 
gulf, broad and deep, and filled it with blood, between 
the North and the South, that can never be crossed, 
at least not by us to come to you." I do not believe 
it. I have read too much history, too much of the 
history of the fratricidal wars of other nations, Jews, 
Greeks, Romans, Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, 
when brother plundered a brother's heritage and shed 
a brother's blood, and then forgot, and forgave, and 
loved as before, to have any faith in declarations of 
eternal hatred and separation by alienated brethren 
of the same nation. And the facts in this history of 
ours are, that the alienations existed before the war, 
and that the war broke them down, or at least under- 
mined them. Studied, malignant, persevering misre- 
presentation had embittered the southern people 
against the people of the north. But the war l)rought 
them together, and then it got to be known through- 
out the rebel States that they were not fighting with 
mean-spirited wretches, cqarse, vulgar, cruel, and 
cowardly ; but with a brave, intelligent, magnanimous 
people, who harbored no malice, but who knew their 
rights, and knowing, dared maintain them. And as 
we are one people, (in blood and birth,) and were 
made to differ so far as we do by an accursM institu- 
tion and malignant misrepresentation, it will be clear 

contrary to nature (now that institution is destroyed, 

3 



18 

, now we know each other as we are, now the war is 
over, and when the makers of the mischief are hung, 
or imprisoned, or transported, or put under ban,) if 
the people themselves do not come together, to walk 
and work, to praise and pray as brethren. 

CoMMEKCiAL CORRUPTION. Mammon still has his 
temples, altars, sacrifices, worshippers. But Mammon 
is not (as five years ago he was) the God of this na- 
tion. We have learned that there is something better 
than money, and something to do better than to make 
money. Look at the men, of her best men, this na- 
tion gave to maintain the Union. Look at the blood 
so cheerfully shed in that behalf. Look at the fathers 
and mothers who gave their darling sons, and the 
wives who gave their beloved husbands, and the 
strong life-loving men who gave themselves. Look at 
the money given in ways almost without number, and 
in amounts almost beyond computation. And look 
at the steadfast, unflinching determination, in many a 
dark hour, that looked the worst in the face and 
simply said: "cost yet what it may, this work must 
be done, and thoroughly done." Aye, the war wiped 
the reproach of this form of commercial corruption 
away from this nation. 

To-day, then, as on no previous fourth of July, 
we are a free people ; four millions of colored people, 
aud twenty-seven millions of wliite people are stripped 
of their Shackles and stand up together before the 
world freemen. And the nation is one ; one and indi. 
visible in its majestic sovereignty. And we do now, 



19 

more than ever before, and shall yet, more and more, 
respect and love one another as brethren. And we 
have learned in the furnace of affliction to hold the 
finest yellow gold but as dross in comparison witli 
patriotism, philanthropy, benevolence, liberty, and 
duty to God and man. These things make this a high 
day, the first and greatest of all days to this nation. 
And these are not all. 

The nation is stronger than she was before the 
war. The wastage of the war in men in the loyal 
States has been made up by emigration. The wastage 
in material has been more than made up by the in- 
creased energies and developed industries of the people. 
She is more respected by other nations; Europe 
has looked in wonder and alarm at the resources and 
powers of the nation brought into use in and by the 
war. There is not in all Europe so effective an army 
or navy as we had when the war ended; and both 
were improvised in less than four years, and could be 
called together again and put upon a fresh war foot- 
ing, if necessary, with magnical celerity. 

She has tested and proved her republican institu- 
tions — tested them to carry on a war, tested them 
during a war, tested them by elections. State and Na- 
tional, in time of war, tested them by disbanding her 
forces at the close of the war, tested them, in these 
and other ways, more severely than any monarchy of 
modern times has been tested or could stand testing, 
and triumphantly proved them. What was theory, 
is now demonstrated truth. 



20 

She is now free to develop lier unparalleled and 
magnificent resources. When I look at Virginia 
(desolate and poor), and think of what God made 
her, (of her noble bays and rivers, her rich valleys 
and uplands, her beautiful mountains, her extensive 
forests, her unrivalled water powers, her inexhaustible 
mines of coal and iron,) and then compare her with 
Pennsylvania, or New York, so rich, so populous, so 
prosperous — when I look at Kentucky, by nature 
the garden of the West, and compare her as she is, 
(her cities, her population, her schools, her agricul- 
ture, her manufactures,) with Ohio or Illinois, and 
seeing the marvellous and humiliating contrasts, ask, 
"Whence is this f I am answered, "One word, 
slavery, will tell you the whole tale." While I lived 
in Georgetown, I loved to climb the Heights and 
look down upon that scene of almost magical beauty 
spreading away from my feet. But I wondered to 
see so little life. " Why," I asked, " are not these 
undulating hills covered with cottages and ^nl- 
jas? Why is not the old town slumbering below a 
city of a hundred thousand souls? Why is not 
that rapid river off to my right crowded for 
miles and miles up toward the coal fields with 
manufactories ? Why is not that broad beauti- 
ful sweep of water before me swarming with 
merchant vessels from all parts of the world ? 
Why do I not hear the shriek of the locomotive and 
see the swiftly-moving trains of cars coming from 
the North, the South, the East, and the West ?" I 
asked these questions, and got for my answer, Slavery. 



21 

Aye, slavery, wlierever it has its home, blasts like 
the mildew, paralyses like the palsy, kills like the 
plague. But slavery is dead. The bloody hand of 
war, striking down the slave holders' rebellion, struck 
down also slavery. And the country, the whole 
country, is open for the development, by free, paid, 
joyful labor, of her unparalleled and magnificent re. 
sources. Standing in this day, as in a gate-way, and 
looking forward into the future, east and west, north 
and south, over the domain of this regenerated Re- 
public, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the 
Lakes to the Gulf, a vision of beauty, prosperity, 
wealth, power, intelligence, happiness, rises before 
me such as the sun shines upon nowhere else in the 
world. Such as is possible, perhaps, only here, and 
in these conditions in all the world. I see it, I be- 
lieve it. I have faith to believe it both possible and 
true. 

But what of our duties? They are many. I 
will speak of but two ; both so obvious and so great 
that I dare not pass them by, and also so comprehen- 
sive that they include a multitude of others. 

One of these is, to seek to attain to some true 
apprehension of our position and responsibilities as 
citizens of this regenerated Christian nation. I am 
not conscious of any inclination to vain-glorious 
boasting concerning this thing, or any disposition to 
magnify the Republic above what she is. But as I 
see her, she occupies the proudest and most command- 
ing position of any nation in the world, and has in 



22 

her possession, to be dispensed, more gifts and bless- 
ings than all the combined Christian nations of the 
earth. In these respects she stands alone in the midst 
of the nations as the almoner of God's great bounty, 
in things temporal and things spiritual. I know of 
nothing, I can conceive nothing, that man can have 
to use, for himself, for others, for God, that he may 
not have here. Home, position, education, influence, 
religion ; every door to every good thing, to every 
best thing, stands wide open. And we, the citizens 
of the Republic, are the possessors, and must be the 
conservators and perpetuators of these things. Do 
we see this? Do we feel it? Do we appreciate it? 
Time was, more than two thousand years ago, in 
Palestine, when the Jew, in a restricted sense, stood 
toward all the rest of the world where we stand now. 
Did he understand his position ? Perhaps not. Was 
he faithful ? Perhaps not. But shall not we under- 
stand, and be faithful ? I love my country, and I see 
such a future before her, if her children are wise, 
faithful and God-fearing, as makes me well nigh sick 
with intense joy. 

The other is, to deal justly by the people whom 
God has brought out of bondage. The cause of the 
oppressed is God's cause, always, and everywhere. 
If at this time we would have God on our side, we 
must be on the side of these for whom He has bared 
His right arm. They are His children — His, because 
He is the common Father of all men, and His, be- 
cause an unusually large portion of them are of the 



redeemed by Jesus Christ. When it was darkest 
with us during our fearful struggle, they had light 
always in their dwellings. When we hardly knew 
where to look for help, their faith had hold of the 
arm that rules the world. And I cannot doubt that 
our triumph was largely due to the Mth and prayers 
of those who were ever true as steel to us, and who 
trusted God with the unquestioning trust of a child 
in its father. And you will remember how God held 
us back from victory, and chastened us, and demanded 
of us sacrifice after sacrifice, till we were willing to 
say, "The enslaved shall be free." But we must do 
more than this. We must do for them and give to 
them all that is included in bein^ freemen in such a 
Republic. I know they are degraded. I know they are 
ignorant. I know them as they are from actual contact 
and association with them. But I know, also, that they 
are true, honest, faithful, capable, and that every breath 
they breathe is instinct with the very spirit of our re- 
publican institutions. Can we stand in doubt of such 
men ? Can we be unjust to such men ? Before God, 
no. We must take them by the hand, and lift them 
up, and lead them on, and give them whatever we 
claim of right for ourselves. Till we do this we our- 
selves are slaves, to caste, to color, to prejudice, as five 
years ago we were slaves to slavery itself. These four 
millions of colored people are not, as a whole, more ig- 
norant or degraded than were the two millions of 
Hebrews who followed Moses out of Egypt into the 
desert, and they are far more docile and tractable, 
and far less opinionated and rebellious ; but they, by 



24 

the exercise of freedom, became worthy to be free- 
men. These are worthy now, have made full proof 
of their worthiness by uncommon sagacity, unflinch- 
ing fidelity, and unsurpassed bravery. It is their 
right, then, to be put in possession of all their 
rights as freemen ; and we cannot deny them this 
without trampling upon the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the Republic and of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 



H ^^ 89 








MtCKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 

W^f^ N. MANCHESTER, '^ ". 

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